NMPRC Records will not be destroyed !!!

Since 09-23-04

Shipmates, Veterans and Military Retirees:

I have received an inordinate amount of email on this so I am repeating my original message on the  subject.

The National Military  Personnel Records Center, in St. Louis, MO is not about to destroy any records at any time.  You may have received email to the contrary.  Please disseminate the below information to all your friends, buddies and relatives.

SCPO Don Harribine, USN(Ret)


es Will Not Be Destroyed
According to the Fleet Reserve Association (FRA), it has been rumored that the National Military Personnel Records Center (NMPRC) in St. Louis, Mo. was planning to automate their stored military records and intended to discard all the hard copies of these documents, unless servicemembers requested them.

Members of FRA's Editorial Team personally called NMPRC to discuss the issue and were quickly assured that such news is purely hearsay. The facility has no plans of automating the files in the near future, nor will they throw away anyone's records. However, servicemembers are eligible to retrieve a copy of the files, if they so desire. Requests should be directed to:

National Personnel Records Center
9700 Page Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63132

You may also call 314-801-9195. Requests are expected to take 2-4 weeks for completion and servicemembers can email mprstatus@nara.gov to check the status of their request. More information regarding military records.
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Send by Fax: 314-801-9195.

The Center will respond in writing by U.S. Mail. You may also check out the this official NARA web page for more information about form SF 180.

Order Processing Time

Response times for records requested from the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) vary greatly depending on the nature of the request. For example, the NPRC Military Records Facility currently has a backlog of 180,000 requests and receives approximately 5,000 requests per day. Routine requests for separation documents currently require only 2-4 weeks for servicing. However, requests that involve reconstruction efforts due to the 1973 fire or older records which require extensive search efforts may take much longer. The average turnaround time on all requests is currently running at approximately
4-12 weeks.

Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)